How to Become a Good Public Writer

Getting started#

You should write a lot.

Notice that I did not make this section about how to be a “great” writer. This is because I am not one, but the point is also that you don’t have to be a “Great” writer to do well in your coding career. You just have to be good enough.

People who don’t write regularly are understandably cautious when asked to start being a public writer. You can get started with three simple steps:

• Have a place to write
• Find time to write
• When in doubt, don’t publish

Have a place to write#

For some, this is an old-school paper notebook; for others, Emacs Org mode might work. I write in OneNote or Notion because searchability and cross-platform capability are important to me.

Find time to write#

Eliminate distractions. You waste a ton of time on distractions. Use writing to fill those holes of boredom in your routine. Use airplane mode when you write. You probably spend a lot of time reading/watching/listening to developer content— take some of that time and write down what you learned— otherwise, 99% of it will be gone from your memory, and you might as well not have consumed that content anyway. You can also sacrifice a vice, like TV or social media time, to find more time to write.

When in doubt, don’t publish#

I will always encourage you to publish your work, but if you’re not sure if you should, keep it private. It’s more important to establish the habit of writing; you can publish what you wrote later when you find your style.

You don’t have to be an expert#

Many people don’t publish their writing because of impostor syndrome. I’m certainly not going to be the first or last to tell you that you don’t have to be an expert to write about something. If you must, put a big disclaimer saying what research you’ve done into the topic, and let people correct you if you are wrong. This is how experts become experts.

Save yourself time#

Another objection is that you still don’t have time to write. Don’t forget that you can write with the explicit intent of saving yourself time. When you summarize things you have read, you not only solidify it in your memory, you save time for your future self when you run across it again or need to quote it. Additionally, when answering questions, rather than explaining the same thing over and over, you write your explanation once, publish it, and you’re done. From then on, you can just point people to it. As Scott Hanselman notes: “Do they deserve the gift of your keystrokes?”

What to write#

Some people feel like they lack ideas for what to write. Easy! I have four categories for you to get started writing:

• Write summaries of things you learned (talks, podcasts, blog posts, books). Bloom’s Taxonomy teaches us that remembering is only the start of learning; we have to understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create in our own words before it becomes a part of us.
• Write down your standard process for how you work, like this “How I Write Backends” post.
• Write down interesting war stories of outages, nasty bugs, and performance improvements.
• Look for questions other people are asking (e.g., on Twitter, Reddit, StackOverflow, etc.) and answer them in your own words.

It can be tempting to write about news (e.g., “This Week in X”), but that has a very short half-life. Where possible, prefer evergreen content – topics that will still be relevant in 5-10 years – to benefit from Lindy Compounding.

Write down what’s obvious to you.#

Derek Sivers is fond of saying that “what’s obvious to you is amazing to others”:

• First, you can start with What topics: “What is Kubernetes?” or “What is Agile?” (Julia Evans’ free zines are great examples of these, but yours can be just text, of course)
• Then, you progress to How: “How do I do X in Y?” (Josh Branchaud has gathered a huge audience posting just tiny bite-sized TIL’s for years)
• Next, get introspective with Why: “Why Do We Write super(props) for under-examined commonplace things?”
• Finally, get more historical and introspective with When and Who topics. Careful not to disclose confidential information!

Write the answer to questions#

Pay particular attention to questions that you ask. When you figure out your answer, don’t just carry on with your day— WRITE IT DOWN! As Chris Coyier says, “Write the article you wish you found when you googled something.” You have no idea how often you’ll be referring to your own work when the need comes up again or when others have the same issue.